मैत्र Maitra

Deity-epithet name for Anurādhā, whose divinity is Mitra. Used at SS 9.14 and also by Brahmagupta at Bhagrahayutyadhikāra 9 (maitrasya) in the yogatārā table, so the usage is standard across the siddhāntas rather than peculiar to one text. The Buddhist Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna independently gives Anurādhā the deity Mitra.

CE lines 05,141.008a/008c. CE Udyoga 5.141 = Ganguli's vulgate Udyoga Parva Section CXLIII — the numbers differ.

The database currently carries Maitra only from the later siddhāntas and al-Bīrūnī; this pushes the attestation back by many centuries. As with Aindra, the epic makes the identification internally: 'Mars, having gone retrograde in Jyeṣṭhā, presses towards ANURĀDHĀ, as if pacifying the MAITRA' — anurādhāṃ and maitraṃ are in apposition in the same half-verse. Mitra is Anurādhā's presiding deity in every nakṣatra-devatā list. δ Sco is imported from the Sūrya Siddhānta entry. A late appendix passage in the Anuśāsana Parva (13,111.021d appendix 012A, a nakṣatra-puruṣa scheme assigning each asterism to a limb) also uses the simple form 'mitra' as an asterism name, but it is an interpolated passage and is noted rather than relied on.